This has been doing the rounds. They talk about him transcending boxing. It's called excellent management and marketing. It's a really good case study of a bloke who has literally only won one even match in his career and that was against ghost of Klitschko who was out ring for 18 month, 41 year old, just lost to Fury, at home at Wembley, and about to retire. Hearn should presumably be given most of the credit for "what Joshua's done for British boxing" i.e. transcending the sport. He saw the guy as a product and sold that duff product to the masses and lapped it up. All Joshua did was beat overmatched opponents who were either old or short, most of whom came with no ambition.
It's a load of nonsense. Hatton filled stadiums and took 30k to Vegas. Froch and Groves filled Wembley first. Eubank and Benn had massive fights on ITV.
Johnny nelson just said only AJ can fill stadiums like Wembley. Fury and Whyte did it and sold the tickets out much quicker lol Lots of top boxers will fill Wembley out over the next decade
Apart from making him and Hearn a fortune at the expense of the mug public, his skillset is on a par with a prime Danny Williams at best and I have never seen what he has done for British Boxing apart from humiliate British Boxing in New York.
Mr. "don't shop in their shops, innit" has no doubt done a lot for the part of the boxing industry based in Britain but he's done absolutely nothing for British boxing.
Hes done absolutely nothing thats not been seen before for british boxing in terms of achievement in honesty. But done a lot in terms of marketability etc. He came around at the right time and got a lot of people interested in boxing. Hearn the same tbh. A big punching heavyweight who was knocking guys out brutally etc. Without joshua...i m not sure who,d have caught the british publics imagination during that time. Fury possibly but too many problems. Wasnt as marketable until latter years and with the joshua rivalry. Outside of joshua i m not sure who else would have got people that aren,t diehards interested in boxing after say hatton.
Joshua's opponents that fell were knockover jobs on mainly small, old or out of shape men for every one of his first 20 fights. All soft fights. This gave the impression that he had serious power which was nonsense compared to Wilder. Joshua's power was easily taken by Joey 12 Parker, Takam, Andy Ruiz twice, Usyk twice, Franklin and now Dubois. Have a look at his CV and apply context - it is rotten.
I genuinely think he did have serious power. They just couldnt utilise it properly because they had to try to protect him from getting knocked out. Always felt the way davidson was moving him was the way he should have been fighting from the start. Looking for and setting up that one shot power shot similar to wilder. In hindsight and after watching the dubois fight tho he has too many flaws or not quite good enough attributes too get it working effectively against good opponents without getting knocked out. He telegraphed his punches from a high guard a lot of his fights. They seen it coming. He never had wilders power but he did have thudding power. They just couldnt utilise it properly because they we,re desperately trying to not get him knocked out. Your right tho....his power wasnt great the way they had him fighting....basically because the way they had him fighting was out of necessity to try to minimise his flaws. Pretty much stuck between a rock and a hard place. Throw good power from a loose stance.....without having the judgement of distance or the reaction time needed for it......or throw average power from a high guard. In the end both left him vulnerable against good opponents. Just had too many attributes not good enough to complement the very good attribute/s he did have imo.
I dislike Amir Khan, but if you're gonna say that about AJ then you've got to say that about Amir. He was probably the only commercial British boxer in the 2000s (Hatton was popular but not as commercial. He wasn't politically correct enough and kinda ugly no homo without the charisma of Eubanks or Benn).